Caulerpa and Chaeto seem to be okay on a 24 hour photoperiod, but few (if any) other macros will tolerate this. Gracillaria needs a period of darkness every day for sure. Many people use refugiums as a source of food items (ie: pods) if they have no predators in there (no crabs, shrimps, fish, etc.)... others use them as a nutrient export. Many people have had good results combining a 'fuge with skimming and other filtration methods.

I run two fuges and 2 DSP, mangroves in both of them. Truthfully I think that's where my success as a reefer comes from, fuges have so many benefits and are so much fun to watch.

Benefits Include:
Nutrient export.
Upstream fuges provide a constant pod supply for lower line tanks.
Slow flowing tank, great to mix with a DSP.
Fuges are great homes for pipe fish/ seahorses and gobies/ pistol shrimps.
Cheaper and much more natural than some of the products on the market.
Harvestable macro algae to sell/ give away or feed to your tangs.
MORE WATER VOLUME :lol:.
Jail for evil crabs.

Levi

More like fighting ring for evil crabs... I've put 5 in my fuge recently and the biggest one is the only one left! :twised:

Thanks everyone for your input! It sounds like adding a refugium to my system is a good idea. I've already decided to replace my sump with a bigger tank and now I'll add a separate refugium tank as well.

Given the space I have available, the best option seems to be to place the refugium right next to my sump. My plan is to set up a small pump to pump from my sump into the refugium with an overflow back to the sump.

How does that sound?

You have water comming into the sump already by gravity from the overflow.
Why don't you T off somewhere with a valve and use plain old gravity to feed your refugium and then overflow to sump?
Adding another pump when gravity will work, to me, is overkill.

Good thread......lots of interesting info
Just wanted to tag along here

Is it possible in your plan to place the refugium higher than the display tank?